The Way Beyond: An Overview of Spiritual Practices

Since the journey leads beyond the self and is based on getting free from a self-defined reality, it is important to understand what the self is and how it came to be.

A newborn baby must learn to perceive the world. Although entering the world with the ability to sense many things, such as basic sounds and smells, the child must learn how to perceive. For example, in the case of vision, the child must learn how to move and focus the eyes, pick out particular forms, see shapes within shapes, and store some of this information in memory for future comparison.

The culture influences this learning by affecting what the child is exposed to and what the child is rewarded for perceiving. The culture also teaches the child a language with which to label and categorize perceptions. Eventually, the child’s perception and thinking are strongly influenced by language.

The child’s consciousness at first is quite undifferentiated. Sensations rise and fall, but there is little of the discriminating, categorizing, judging, and accepting and rejecting that is common to the adult mind; similarly, at first there is little sense of a personal self, a division of experiences into me and not-me. The child is said to be in a prepersonal stage, a stage of development before a sense of a personal, individualized self.

Then the child gradually develops a sense of self. At first this is influenced by the discovery of the body as something that can be controlled to some degree and as different from things outside the body. So the early sense of self is to some extent identified with the body.

Associated with the sense of self is a sense of will, the action or influence of the self. As the self develops and changes, so does the will. American mothers often talk about the “terrible twos,” referring to the fact that children around two years of age often practice exerting their developing self and will. This may take the form of being willful, controlling, or opinionated.

As a sense of self or “me” develops, so does a sense of “mine.” Not only does the child have a sense of an individualized self, but this self also possesses things in the world.

As this is happening, the child moves from the prepersonal stage to the personal stage, the stage of development centering around the self and will. This is the “fall from Eden,” the gradual “getting lost” in an ego-based reality.

Now a person’s sense of self continually changes. As we get older and watch our body change, we identify less with the body. Rather, the body is perceived as being part of the self, or as something the self inhabits or controls.

Our sense of self may become more identified with the mind and/or social roles. A child asked to answer the question “Who am I?” may answer in terms of body and name, while an older person may answer in terms of social roles, such as vocation and family position. By now the person is probably strongly identified with some sense of self which is the thinker of thoughts, perceiver of perceptions, doer of actions, and consistent subject of many memories.

Thus, many people identify with the activity of their minds: “I am the thinker of these thoughts.” Others develop a sense of inner self in which the self is more of an observer: “I am the observer of the mind having thoughts. I am not the thinker of the thoughts, I am the observer of the thinker.”

Regardless of these distinctions, most adults have a sense of a separate self that exists in some relation to their bodies. Most people I have polled feel that “they” are inside their heads. Some feel they are inside their hearts, diffused through the whole body, or just above or behind the head.

Two important psychological phenomena commonly occur during the personal stage of development. One is that the person acquires a variety of thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward the self, many of which are often negative in tone. Secondly, the person’s self may fractionate into several different selves and/or aspects of the self.

During development, our sense of self is continually being conditioned by parents, peers, television, and so forth. We come to believe we are smart or stupid, attractive or plain, worthy or unworthy, and so on. Thus, a person develops a self-concept and self-esteem. Now, surprisingly, our self-concept often is not very accurate. For example, a person who is generally perceived by others as clever and charming may perceive himself as being slow and dull. Many of the humanistic therapies focus on our unrealistic and/or overly negative associations to our self.

Many people are more tolerant and accepting of friends than of themselves. Thus, a recurrent theme in this book will be to “make friends with yourself.” This involves clearly seeing your strengths and weaknesses and unconditionally accepting them all, as you hopefully would with a good friend, while also recognizing ways to improve and trying to do so.

When a person dislikes some aspect of the perceived self, the self may be broken into parts and some parts pushed out of consciousness. Thus, the self becomes fragmented.

Similarly, a person may develop different selves for different situations, such as a parent self, an employee self, and a party self. Problems arise when we have trouble integrating these different selves into one self. For example, a person may have trouble combining the tough, hard-headed business person with the warm, compassionate lover and parent, although these are not necessarily incompatible. Some Western therapies, such as Gestalt therapy and Psychosynthesis, and some tantric and Tibetan Buddhist practices are designed to synthesize and integrate the various aspects of the different selves.

What I have described can be seen in the following common example: Parents want their child to be in some way different from the way he or she is. A part of the child’s mind assumes the parents’ position and then negatively evaluates other aspects of self. The child’s self is then split, and suffering results.

An important point to keep in mind is that, as a general rule, before we can adequately move into the next stage of development, we must resolve many of the issues of the personal stage. We need to Uncover and synthesize different aspects of the self, and to make friends with ourselves.

The next stage of development after the personal stage is the transpersonal stage. Here the person gets beyond the limitations and problems which result from identifying with a particular, restricted, individualized sense of self. It is not that the self ceases to exist or loses its functions; rather one transcends the identification with the self. This transcendence opens the person to greater clarity, freedom, and peace of mind. The fundamental essence of the self sits at the border between the personal and transpersonal. When one sees through the self, one sees into the transpersonal.

Ramana Maharshi, a respected Indian yogi, suggested the inquiry “Who am I?” as a major practice for moving from the personal to the transpersonal. The practice involves continually tuning the consciousness toward the subjective experience of the self. Who is reading these words? What is your direct, first-hand experience of this self who is reading? Who is the observer of the self? This is a powerful practice that leads to ever subtler levels of the apparent self.

Similarly, Buddhist vipassana meditation practices lead to a direct experience and insight into the nature of the self. When the mind is sufficiently calm and aware, it is turned on the experience of self. What is found is that there is no constant, unchanging entity of self; rather there is a dynamic set of processes of grasping and contraction. Seeing through this is liberating.

But all of this is getting too far ahead. This book surveys those practices which help to resolve issues at the personal stage and lead to the transpersonal. You can see the exact nature of the self and the transpersonal for “yourself” later in the journey.

There are four levels of being human: the biological, the behavioral, the personal, and the transpersonal. These four levels are totally interrelated and exist in practically everyone, whether we are aware of them or not.

The biological level, the level of the body including the brain, is the exquisite product of dynamic forces that can be viewed evolutionarily and/or teleologically. Its form and nature are the result of the interplay of genetic, environmental, and learning factors. It strongly influences the other three levels and depends on them for most effective functioning.

The biological level is the species level, what it means to be homo sapiens. This includes what we as a species are capable of sensing; our limitations are in what we are capable of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. For example, the visual spectrum is a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Yet we readily develop a sense of “reality” based on what is perceived through these small windows.

The major characteristic of the human species is that it was biologically selected for its capability to learn, with predispositions for certain types of learning, such as for language. Through learning, humans can adapt to various situations without requiring biological changes in the species. Through learning, humans can communicate, store, and transmit knowledge and, thereby, develop cultures.

The biological level is the level of many individual differences including physical characteristics, reactivity of the nervous system, chemical balances in the brain, and variability of blood sugar level. These and a host of other biological factors can influence emotions, thinking ability, sense of well-being, and ability to maximize processes of the other three levels.

Good breathing, exercise, and nutrition are stressed by many spiritual disciplines. This includes learning deep breathing and the influence of breathing on biological, psychological, and spiritual states. This has been particularly well developed in the yoga of India and the Taoism of China. Exercise strengthens the cardiovascular system and improves flexibility and muscle tone. Appropriate exercise also improves mood, promoting peacefulness of mind. Good nutrition involves establishing a healthy diet and learning how different foods influence energy, mood, and psycho-spiritual state. There are great individual differences here. Ayurvedic nutrition in yoga has much to contribute.

The second level of being human is the behavioral level, which deals with the output of the biological level. What do the body and brain do? Behaviors include moving, talking, emoting, and thinking. Thus the behavioral level includes how we act, feel, and think. Specific behaviors are a function of biological factors interacting with learning and motivation. Behavior modification is an effective current Western therapy for dealing with behaviors, and changes at the behavioral level often produce changes at the biological level.

The third level, the personal, is the level of subjective consciousness, which includes the subjective experience of the first two levels. Somehow related to the behaving body/mind is a sense of conscious awareness. It is the level of mind and perception, as opposed to brain and sensation. I am aware of the thinking and imaging of my mind, however it may be related to the physical brain. I am aware of my perceptions of seeing, however they may be related to visual sensations affecting the eye and brain. The limitations of the biological level and the dynamics of the behavioral level greatly influence what gets into consciousness at the personal level.

Here also is the seat of the personal self discussed in the last chapter. For not only is there consciousness, but the consciousness is often from the vantage point of an individualized self and related will. And this self-based consciousness can also be aware of itself to some extent. I can examine my sense of self. So we say there is self consciousness.

Being the seat of the self, the personal level is also the domain of self-concept, self-esteem, self-determination self-control, self-efficacy, and so forth.

Although such self-based experiences can sometimes be changed by interventions aimed at the personal level, they are often most effectively changed via changes at the biological and behavioral level. Thus, a person with a poor self-concept may not be best helped by confronting the self-concept. Rather, it may be better to help the person learn new social and vocational skills, learn better control of thoughts, and overcome specific behavioral problems. This will lead to more effective and happy living, which will usually improve the self-concept. Thus all the great spiritual traditions recognize the importance of ordering one’s life on moral and practical guidelines and cleaning up one’s life at the biological and behavioral levels to facilitate changes at the personal and transpersonal levels.

Conversely, changes at the personal level, such as improving attitudes toward the self or synthesizing disparate aspects of the self, often produce changes at the behavioral and biological levels. Resolving personal level issues increases awareness of body and behavior, reduces stress, and breaks down some of the apparent barriers between levels. And changes at the personal level are often necessary or useful before one can most effectively work at the transpersonal level.

At the boundary of the personal level and the transpersonal level is the very essence of the self. Existentialists often confront the self and related will around issues concerning individual existence. Topics of importance to many existentialists include personal autonomy, authenticity, self-actualization, mortality, aloneness, meaning, responsibility, and freedom. Imbedded here are many potential sources of anxiety, such as that related to boundaries of being, feelings of isolation, threat of death, sense of fundamental impotence, and perceived absurdity. These existential anxieties are often not resolvable at the personal level, but are transcended in the transpersonal level.

The fourth level, the transpersonal, is beyond and “prior to” the personal level. It is the field of forces in which the apparent self emerges and changes. It is consciousness per se, rather than the contents of consciousness of the personal level. It is pure existence prior to the form of existence. It is a state-of-being of fundamental peace and equanimity, as opposed to the pleasure and pain of the other levels. It is the ground in which one’s vantage point is no longer identified with the individualized self of the personal level.

Although everyone exists at the transpersonal level, most people most of the time are constricted in their awareness to the personal level. It is usually only in special circumstances, such as the birth of a child or a religious experience, that one consciously touches the transpersonal. But this level is always there. Thus, it is not something to be acquired or achieved, only realized. It is not something that the self can experience or possess since it is beyond the self. Developmentally, most people move from the prepersonal stage to the personal stage, and they basically get stuck there, unaware of the transpersonal level of their being. Continued development into the transpersonal stage involves the freeing realization of the transpersonal level, which was always present.

It is difficult to describe the transpersonal in terms of traditional conceptual knowledge, for the transpersonal level is based on insights and knowledge that is of a type different from conceptual knowledge. Transpersonal knowledge is usually validated in a way that seems immediately obvious, like the “ah-ha” experience. This book provides various conceptualizations of the transpersonal. Yet the transpersonal is not adequately approached or understood conceptually, so the concepts are useful only to the extent that they lead beyond themselves to other types of knowing. There is no particular idea, concept, theory, or belief that I am arguing for. You as a reader will agree or disagree with different statements, choosing what is useful to you. Find and develop those ideas and related practices which speak to you. But be careful that clinging to particular ideas or beliefs doesn’t impair your progress into broader domains of knowing and being.

Consider popular games like Monopoly, backgammon, and bridge. How well one does in these games is a combination of skill and luck. For many of us the amount of fun we have playing such games depends on whether we win or not. If we are winning, we enjoy the game much more than if we are losing. And some people gloat when they win and complain when they lose.

There is another less common type of game player. For this player, whom I call a meta-player, the fun is in the playing of the game, not in winning or losing. The meta-player tries to win, since that is the objective of the game, but the fun is in playing the game, win or lose. Thus the meta-player always has a good time, while the happiness of the average player cycles up and down.

Next, consider the game of life, the adventure-drama of daily living. Everyone has ideas about what constitutes winning here. Winning might be measured in terms of money, prestige, friends, health, pleasure, or spiritual progress. Most people sometimes win in the game of life and sometimes lose. Like most games, the game of life has components of both skill and luck. Some things you can control and master; some things you can’t.

For everyone who plays the game of life it is important to learn to play the game well, to play skillfully, with clarity, precision, and compassion. We need to acquire the knowledge and skills to maximize winning and to increase the role of skill over luck. Unfortunately, for the average player happiness depends on the amount of winning, but for the meta-player happiness is based on simply playing the game. The meta-player considers the game very important and does his best to win. But the meta-player enjoys and appreciates just the opportunity to play.

The game of life is filled with pleasure and pain, and a common objective of the game is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. All this is fine at the level of the game. But the common trap is to allow our happiness to be dependent on the amount of pleasure in the game. Happiness is better based on how you play the game, rather than the outcome of the game. This is the “secret” of the meta-player. As one learns this, one gradually gets free from the game, which is the key to the transpersonal. So there is pleasure and pain at the level of the game, and happiness at the level of how you play the game. Beyond this, one finds a peace of mind which is totally independent of the game.

Similarly, the game of life is filled with potential sources of stress that can impair the body and mind. The average player experiences considerable stress in the game, while the meta-player experiences much less stress and can often transform potential sources of stress into sources of energy.

In the first chapter, I made a distinction between “religious” and “spiritual.” In terms of the analogy of this chapter, we can say that religion is at the level of the game, while spirituality is involved with getting free from the game.

In many games it is possible occasionally to call a time-out and step out of the game for a while. This gives you a chance to catch your breath, see the game more objectively, and re-evaluate your game strategy. Unfortunately, few players ever take time-out from the game of life; they just keep playing. They may change aspects of the game, such as the setting, but they are always in the game. In this book you will learn how meditation is a way to call time-out in the game of life. And the chapter on retreats discusses additional ways.

Another type of game on the market today is the role-playing and/or fantasy game, such as “Dungeons and Dragons.” In these games the player may assume a role, such as that of wizard, pirate, mafia boss, or extra-terrestrial. Thus, a player may be a pirate while in the game, but step out of this role during time-outs and when the game is over. Occasionally problems arise when a player has trouble totally getting out of the role he assumed for the game.

The game of life is a role-playing game in which you have been taught a specific role by parents, friends, teachers, and your culture. As in all role-playing games, it is important to really get into this role and have fun playing it as best you can. The problem with the game of life is that people get so caught up in their roles that they begin to believe and defend them. They get lost in the melodrama and start believing that the game is basic reality. The meta-player sees through this, recognizes the restricted “reality” of the game, and does not identify the “self” with the role. When a person sees through or wakes up from the role-playing game of life, he realizes that whoever he is it isn’t the role. He becomes less vulnerable for he can’t be hurt in many of the ways the character in the game can be hurt. He realizes that a person is not his behavior. Our essence is different from our actions. We can learn the importance of loving ourselves and others unconditionally, regardless of how we or others behave in the game. We may like and dislike some of our own and others’ behaviors and may try to change some of them. That is fine at the level of the game, but beyond this is the unconditional acceptance and love of all players, many of whom are lost in the game.

For practical reasons, most people must continue to play their roles in the game, although they can significantly alter the roles. The trick is to be able to continually play the game but not be lost in it. This is the great spiritual teaching that one should be “in the world but not of it,” emphasized by the Christ, the Buddha, the Sufis, and others.

When you are asleep and dreaming, the dream can seem very real; you are living in a different reality, a different state of consciousness. The rules of reality in the dream are different from the rules of the normal non-sleep consensus reality. In the dream, people may pop in and out of existence or change into other people or other beings. In the dream, you may be able to do miraculous things or be many different people. The sense of self can be very different from the sense of self in the normal non-sleep conscious state.

Sometimes you might “wake up” in the dream; that is, you might still be dreaming but be aware that you are dreaming and that the dream is not “real.” This is called “lucid” dreaming. People can learn how to wake up more often in dreams and thus profit more from the dream state. They can then alter the dreams in various ways. Similarly, a hypnogogic state of consciousness may occur as a person starts to fall asleep; this is the drowsy place between awake and asleep. Here a person may have an awake type of conscious awareness of dream-like mental activity beginning to occur.

So people can be awake in varying degrees during sleeping dreams. But for most people most of the time, when they are dreaming they are lost in the apparent reality of the dream. When they wake up, they see the dream for what it is: the mental activity of a particular state of consciousness, a subset of a broader reality.

Now consider the next step, waking up from the normal awake consciousness. What would it be like to wake up from this consensus reality, wake up from this ego-based level of consciousness? In fact, throughout recorded history everywhere in the world there have been people awakening. To these awakened beings, normal conscious reality is like a dream. It seems very real to most people, but once you awaken it is seen for what it is: the mental activity of a particular state of consciousness, a subset of a broader reality.

Some people who are lost in the waking-dream of normal consciousness may occasionally be aware they are dreaming. Some dreamers may even learn ways to wake up in the dream. But for the person who has awakened from the dream, it is clear that all one has to do is wake up. Much of what one does in the dream itself is related only to the melodrama of the dream, not to waking up from the dream.

This leads to a fundamental spiritual truth: there is nothing you must do in order to awaken, just wake up. Activities within the dream are still within the dream; it is a matter of waking from the dream. The self can improve itself and collect experiences and ideas; but this does not necessarily ever lead beyond the self. Zen is founded on this spiritual truth. Zen teachers and practices are continually confounding the student’s attempt to achieve something within the dream. Rather, Zen continually exposes the student to the awakened perspective, which is everyone’s fundamental ground.

Now simply being told to wake up is not very helpful. What is the dreamer to do? Fortunately, the answer is clear. The dreamer follows those practices which improve life within the dream and set the stage for awakening. This book summarizes such practices.

Thus, the seemingly paradoxical truth is that the dreamer carries out practices within the dream that facilitate awakening from the dream, which in turn leads to the realization that nothing had to occur in the dream in order for one to be awakened.

The awakened state has been described in many terms including enlightenment, satori, cosmic consciousness, Christ consciousness, consciousness-without-an-object, at-one-ment, illumination, and return to the source. Although these terms are not equivalent, the fundamental perspective of awakened beings is universal. It is a conscious perspective which is prior to and inclusive of the normal state of consciousness. All the descriptive analogies for moving into this transpersonal domain are inaccurate in many ways. But the analogy of waking from a dream is quite useful and popular. Other common analogies include levels of consciousness, rebirth, escape from prison or bonds, and mythical quests.

Few people suddenly wake up. For most it is a case of gradually awakening, with slow, uneven “progress.” Sometimes there is a good jump “forward,” sometimes a melodramatic fall “backward.” Sometimes there is continual “progress.” Sometimes frustrating stuckness. Eventually the person may have the feeling of waking up, falling asleep, waking up, etc., with the waking up times gradually becoming more frequent, longer, broader, and subtler.

The key here is not to get caught up in the drama of the “progress” of awakening as perceived by the dreamer. This only reinforces the illusionary search within the dream. Rather, one continues the practices within the dream, learns not to equate objectives of the dream with probability of awakening, and continually reorients toward that which is superordinate to the dream.

The word “meditation” is used to refer to many different things. For some it means to think about or ponder over something (“I’ll meditate on that”). For others it means to fantasize or daydream. For still others meditation is necessarily a religious or occult practice. None of these interpretations is what is meant here.

In this book meditation is a “time-out” from “the game of life.” It is a time to set the body down and relax the mind. It is an opportunity to work with the processes of the mind and disentangle oneself from the ordinary melodrama.

The fundamental meditation practices of all the world’s great meditation traditions can be reduced to two basic components: processes of the mind and objects of attention. All the great traditions emphasize the development of one or both of two fundamental processes of the mind: concentration and mindfulness. These will be discussed in the next two chapters.

The second basic component of meditation, the object of attention, is what the meditator focuses Consciousness on, with eyes open or closed. It might be something you look at, such as a photograph or mandala. It might be sounds, such as a prayer, chant, or mantra. Or it might be an image called up in the mind. The object is chosen because of particular properties of the object itself and/or associations it has for the meditator.

In the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, the objects of attention are scenes from Christ’s life, used as a way of opening to Christ. A yogi might focus on the mantra aum, a primordial sound leading one back toward the source. A Tibetan Buddhist might focus on the image of a “deity” which represents a particular aspect or force of the mind. A Theravadin Buddhist might meditate on the death and decay of the body as a means to get free from vain attachment to the body. And Western therapies are filled with imagery techniques in which clients focus on specific imagined scenes. Therapeutic change is attributed to processes such as covert conditioning, modeling, reprogramming the unconscious, and altering expectations.

The multitude of objects of meditation is not within the domain of this book, with a few exceptions to come later. Rather, the emphasis is on the basic form, attitude, and mental processes of meditation. When these are mastered to some extent, the meditator can more profitably choose and utilize various objects of meditation which are more specialized to particular paths and/or individual needs.

When most people are awake in the world, their minds are continually running—think, think, see, see, feel, feel, see, think, feel, hear, think, think, see, and on and on. Even when they relax, such as turning to reading or television, it is just a change in the stuff the mind responds to—see, see, think, see, think, think, etc. The mind is a wonderful power tool that is usually running out of control. Since this is the “normal” state of affairs, most people are not aware that their minds are out of control or how advantageous it would be to have more control over this power tool.

In Eastern analogies the mind is described as a drunken monkey, which runs wildly about in a room with six windows. Five windows correspond to the five physical senses (seeing, hearing, etc.), and the sixth window corresponds to the mental sense (thinking, remembering, etc.). The drunken monkey races from one window to the next. For most people it is almost impossible to slow the monkey down or keep it at any particular window for more than a very brief time. This chapter deals with taming the monkey. But the monkey does not want to be tamed and will give us various reasons and experiences to keep from being tamed. And since the monkey is our own mind, these will be convincing reasons and distracting experiences. There are many impairments caused by a mind out of control. Most people are not very good at listening to others, even though they think they are. When another person is talking and one should be listening, the mind is running about reacting to what is being said and planning what to say in response. As the topic becomes more important and/or emotional, the listening usually decreases. Similarly, many people have trouble reading or studying as the monkey keeps running off. Do you periodically get to the bottom of a page and realize you don’t know what you have just “read”?

Some people can’t leave their work at the office. When they are at home with the family, their minds keep returning to the business. Some people have trouble getting to sleep at night because their minds keep going to personal concerns, plans for the next day, and so forth. And some are readily thrown into depression because they can’t prevent their minds from thinking certain thoughts that lead to depression.

These and many other problems are caused by the drunken monkey. The solution is to tame the monkey through developing concentration or one-pointedness. Concentration is the ability to hold the mind where we want without it running off. Even developing a small amount of concentration can be a big help.

Meditation practices to develop concentration are also called tranquility meditations. For as we develop concentration, we also quiet and relax the mind, which to some extent relaxes the body. Developing concentration is a good way to learn to relax, particularly if many of the sources of stress and anxiety are primarily mental.

From a transpersonal standpoint, there are even stronger reasons for developing concentration. If we are always lost in monkey business, then all we will ever know are our own thoughts and perceptions. Our reality is defined by the monkey. To wake up from the dream, we need to quiet the mind so we can be open to a broader reality and other types of knowing. The door to the transpersonal is found in the spaces between thoughts. Behind and before all the thoughts and perceptions is a domain of consciousness that is very sane and calm. Don Juan, Castaneda’s Yaqui Indian sorcerer, said, “The world of sorcerers opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off internal dialogue.” The Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen stated, "Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know.” And mystics have continually said that the way to the mystical level requires emptying the mind of all thoughts, images, and perceptions.

Now this does not involve impairing the useful functioning of the mind. (Did your drunken monkey tell you it would?) In fact, getting control of your mind lets you use it more effectively. You control what your mind does and doesn’t pursue. But as you quiet the mind, you get free from it, stand back from it, and see it in a broader perspective. Then as your reality is no longer totally restricted to the usual mind stuff, your consciousness is open to a broader and more fundamental reality. You are open to insights and knowledge different from the conceptual knowledge of the monkey.

But this is all much further down the road. At the beginning, you want to develop concentration for its many personal benefits. As your concentration improves, it will aid many other aspects of your spiritual practice, and as your mind quiets, you will gradually have access to the transpersonal domain.

For most people, meditation is the best place to start developing concentration. This is particularly true for people who lead a complex life, such as most Americans. The practices outlined here assume you have spent some time, at least a couple of weeks, doing meditation as described in the previous chapter.

Each time the monkey runs off, gently and firmly reel it back in. In meditation whenever the mind leaves the breath (or other focus of meditation), gently and firmly bring your attention back to the breath, thus gradually developing concentration. You want to notice whatever catches your attention, but minimize getting lost in it. For example, if a particular sound draws your attention, notice the sound, but don’t get into categorizing, evaluating, or thinking about the sound. Just notice it and return to your breath. Often you will get lost in the distraction, such as lost in memories or lost in thinking about some feeling. When you become aware that you are lost in some distraction, gently and firmly return your attention to your breath. Don’t worry about how long you were lost or judge yourself. Just return to your breath. Forget about the past. Develop concentration here and now in each instant of meditation that you can.

For a while your mind will be readily distracted, regardless of how you structure the meditation. If it is not one thing, it will be another until you have developed some degree of concentration. So, if one day you are particularly distracted by certain sounds, you may wish to reduce these sounds. But don’t blame your lack of concentration on the sound . Even if you eliminate the sounds, something else will distract you. The problem is in the control of your mind.

Sometimes a particular distraction, such as a sound or feeling, is so strong that it keeps pulling your mind to itself. In this situation, focus on the distraction and keep bringing your attention back to it. After the distraction has lost much of its power over your mind, return to your breath as the focus of attention.

At first, most people have a lot of trouble concentrating and are surprised at how little control they have over their minds. Even after one has developed a fairly concentrated meditation, the next day the drunken monkey may be at its wildest. Be patient and accept where you are. Gradually, you will develop concentration during meditation, and you will notice increased concentration in daily living. These effects will probably be subtle at first, but will grow stronger, and after a few weeks you may notice that you concentrate better on your reading and/or listen better when others are talking.

As your concentration improves, you can further develop it in almost any situation. For example, when listening to others or to music, keep your attention on what you are hearing. Whenever you are aware your attention has drifted, gently and firmly bring it back to listening. This type of concentration practice can be done when watching a movie (focus on seeing), exercising (focus on body sensations), bathing (smells and feelings), eating (tastes and smells), praying (absorption in devotion and communion), or almost any other activity.

Concentration helps brings you more into the here and now and allows you to stop and smell the flowers, to experience the beauty of reality in the midst of monkey business. In a popular story told by the Buddha, a man crossing a field encounters a tiger. Chased by the tiger, the man comes to a precipice, grabs a vine, and hangs over the edge. Hanging there, he sees the tiger above him, and far below a second tiger waiting. Two mice, one white and one black, begin to gnaw on the vine. Seeing a strawberry nearby, the man reaches over with one hand and plucks it. How sweet it tastes!

The Buddhist/yogic literature describes eight jhanas, levels of samadhi (concentration and absorption) that can be achieved by advanced meditators. During the first four jhanas, concentration continually increases while distractions (including thoughts and pain) decrease. Rapture and bliss are experienced, but are gradually replaced by equanimity, in which all arisings in consciousness are accepted equally. At this point (the fourth jhana), there is no suffering or joy, and concentration is imperturbable. The last four jhanas are beyond all perception of form and involve consciousness of infinite space, objectless infinite consciousness, awareness of nothing-ness, and finally, neither- perception-nor-nonperception.

Such meditative levels need not concern us now, nor should they be taken as necessary for optimal spiritual work. Rather, seek to gradually increase your concentration and discover how it aids your personal and transpersonal growth.

Everyone has some degree of awareness, a subjective conscious experience of noticing. Not only do the eyes and the brain process visual information, but we often have the subjective experience of seeing something. The object of awareness and awareness itself usually arise together, at the same time, so awareness and the objects of awareness are often confused. But it is possible to develop this awareness over and above what you are aware of. You can increase the range of your consciousness, developing an intentional awareness that Buddhists call “mindfulness.”

Developing mindfulness involves cultivating awareness of whatever arises in consciousness. Mindfulness is sometimes called “bare attention” because it is just noticing whatever arises in consciousness. Mindfulness is not thinking about or reacting to what arises; the mind does the thinking and reacting. Mindfulness is just noticing whatever arises in consciousness, including the thoughts and reactions of the mind. Mindfulness is sometimes called “choiceless awareness” because it does not direct or influence what comes into consciousness. It is an open, clear, calm, sane awareness that objectively notices whatever arises in consciousness without elaborating on it, reacting to it, identifying with it, or getting lost in it.

In intermediate stages of developing mindfulness, one moves into the “witness” space. From this vantage point, one observes the contents of consciousness, including thoughts and images, without getting pulled into them. Here, one’s sense of self is no longer identified with the contents of the mind. This is very liberating and opens the door to the transpersonal.

Many people at first confuse mindfulness with thinking. Thus, a person may have a thought and then think about having the thought. But this is not mindfulness; it is just more thinking. Mindfulness is the awareness of the thought and the awareness of the thinking about the thought. But it is not the thinking itself. It takes a while for many people to distinguish thinking and mindfulness.

Developing mindfulness is helpful at all four levels of being. For example, many people are out of touch with their bodies and do not notice various stresses and strains or the physiological and psychological effects of different foods. As we become more mindful of our bodies, we are able to treat them better and improve our health. Most of us are not very aware of our own behavior, of the subtle interplay among thoughts, feelings, and actions. As we become more mindful of our behavior, we can more readily produce the changes we want and become more effective personally and socially. Developing mindfulness decreases accidents, forgetting, and the need for doublechecking.

So developing mindfulness includes expanding our range of awareness. As we increase mindfulness, we can become aware of our behavior earlier in the chain of events and gain greater self-control. Consider a person who suddenly becomes angry. It may be difficult to get out of the anger and open the heart because the anger has already built up a strong force. But through mindfulness training the person can become aware of precursors of anger earlier in the behavioral chain of events, perhaps when the body starts to tense up or the mind starts to generate anger-related thoughts. At this early stage it is easier to stop the anger, thus allowing greater self-control and freedom. Prior to many actions is the intention to act. The average person is seldom aware of this, and just acts; the person who is mindful at the level of intention has more choices. The same is true of feelings, thoughts, and perceptions. Thus, the mindful person has considerably more choice in how she perceives and responds to the world. For many people the best place to begin developing mindfulness is during meditation. The instructions here assume that you have spent at least a few weeks meditating. Also, for many people, it is best to have developed a certain degree of concentration before emphasizing mindfulness during meditation.

Here is what to do. Sit in meditation (or lie down if that is your form). Put your attention on your breath and quiet your mind with your concentration practice. Then simply let your mind go where it will and notice whatever comes into consciousness. If a sound attracts your attention, notice the sound. You don’t direct your mind; this is choiceless awareness. It is important that you merely notice what arises and not get pulled out of bare attention into elaborations or reactions to what arises. If the mind thinks about something, notice the thinking but don’t get lost in thought. Try to be mindful and cultivate the witness space. Let your mind and attention go where they will. But whenever there is a gap or pause, bring your attention back to your breath. And all the time try to just notice what arises in consciousness. Sometimes you will be mindful and sometimes you will get lost in the specific contents of consciousness. Gradually encourage the mindfulness, accepting yourself where you are. Like all of our meditation practices, this is slow and subtle, yet very powerful.

If during meditation you need to move your legs, scratch, swallow, cough, or anything else, then do it mindfully. Do it slowly if possible, noticing all intentions, sensations of movement, and other feelings. Notice the rising and falling of your abdomen during breathing. This is often an appropriate point at which to follow the breathing during mindfulness meditation.

In the same way that saying “in-out” or “rising-falling” may help you to follow your breath, so other labeling may help develop mindfulness. If your attention is pulled to a sound, external or mental, then say “hearing.” If your attention is pulled to a body sensation, say “feeling”; if a visual image, say “seeing.” Say this silently to yourself, not out loud. Eventually, this labeling becomes very subtle, a whisper at the edge of your consciousness. The labeling is an aid to active noticing, a tool to encourage mindfulness.

At first there are only six labels: hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting, and thinking. “Thinking” includes mental activity such as remembering, planning, evaluating, worrying, and so forth. These six labels correspond to the six windows of the drunken monkey’s room. Thus, the labeling during part of a meditation practice might go “thinking, thinking, hearing, thinking, feeling, feeling, feeling, thinking,. . .”

As you get more proficient at this use of labels, you can add others such as “moving,” “swallowing,” “bending,” and “scratching.” You can use labels for types of thinking, like “planning,” “remembering,” “judging,” and “wanting.” Eventually start to notice “intending.” Add those labels that are useful to you. But don’t get caught up in the process of labeling; this will lead to thinking, not mindfulness.

In this chapter and the previous one, we have seen two major components of meditation—concentration and mindfulness. In concentration meditation we emphasize continually bringing the attention back to a particular object, such as the breathing. In mindfulness meditation we let the mind go more freely and emphasize noticing whatever arises in consciousness, perhaps with the use of labeling. In fact, both forms of meditation contain both components; it is a matter of emphasis. In both forms we want to notice what catches our attention (mindfulness) and develop moment-to-moment one-pointedness (concentration).

With experience you will learn how to find the optimal balance of concentration and mindfulness for any particular meditation session. Sometimes your mind will be scattered and upset and you will want to emphasize concentration; sometimes you will be more tranquil and will want to emphasize mindfulness. But you will always want to be mindful of both components and to develop both to some extent, even when emphasizing one over the other.

One thing is important to keep in mind at all times in meditation: no matter what arises in consciousness, treat it as a distraction and just notice it. If it tends to pull you into it, then gently and firmly return to your breath. Various feelings, images, and insights will arise during meditation. And some of these, after meditation, will be of great interest or value to you, perhaps even changing your life in an important way. This is fine after meditation. But during meditation, treat everything that arises as just something to notice and leave. Don’t let the drunken monkey disrupt your meditation.

After some experience with sitting meditation, you may wish to add walking meditation. For this you need a length of space, about ten to fifteen yards long. Clasp your hands lightly in front or behind, and keep your eyes open and looking down about three feet in front of you. Slowly walk back and forth along your path. Too slow is better than too fast. With each step, slowly lift your leg, slowly move it forward, and slowly place it down. The mindfulness labeling for these three components of each step are “lifting,” “moving,” and “placing.” Concentration is developed during walking meditation by continually bringing the mind back to the direct experience of walking. Mindfulness is cultivated by noticing subtler and subtler aspects of the physical sensations of walking and related mental events. When slowly turning around at the end of the path, one can be mindful of “stopping,” “turning,” “standing,” and “intending.”

Almost everything said earlier about meditation in general applies to walking meditation. For example, you should start doing it for about ten minutes and gradually build up. And the attitude toward meditation is important. Doing a walking meditation before and/or after a sitting meditation can be very effective. Sometimes you may prefer to do only a walking meditation. In Buddhist meditation intensives where people meditate for many hours a day, the practice consists of alternating between sitting and walking.

After you have developed some degree of mindfulness during meditation, you can start cultivating mindfulness while doing almost anything, including gardening, taking out the garbage, or talking. What you do is put your full attention (concentration) on the activity itself (do it slowly if practical), and notice in detail all the various sensations and thoughts involved. Try to experience all sensations as if they were totally new to you, as if you had never done the activity before, or as if you had just been given vision or hearing.

For example, listen to music as if you had never heard anything before. Exactly what do you experience? Where do you experience it? Eat something very slowly and mindfully. Notice in detail all the changing smells, tastes, and movements of tongue and jaws. Slowly do neck rolls, rotating your head from front to side to back to other side to front. Notice in detail the various sounds and feelings. Notice how relaxed or tense various muscles are. Slowly move some part of your body, Such as a finger, and notice in detail the intention to move, the sense of will, and the subtle sensations of movement. When bathing, notice in subtle detail the wide range of feelings, smells, Sights, and sounds. Try mindfully doing many different things, such as looking at a friend, seeing yourself in a mirror, reading, visualizing, and thinking.

Eventually you will come to realize that anything you do is an opportunity to cultivate more mindfulness. A Zen story tells of the student who visited his master on a rainy day, leaving his shoes and umbrella in the vestibule. The master asked him whether his umbrella was to the left or right of the shoes. Not knowing, the student realized he had much more work to do in developing continual mindfulness.

Try to spend parts of every day increasing mindfulness. After you have been doing this for a while, periodically set aside a day in which you try to be as mindful as possible throughout the whole day. Don’t do anything just to get it done. Rather, pull into the here and now of doing the task and enjoy the activity itself, regardless of what it accomplishes. Try to do everything slowly, precisely, reverently, and mindfully.

Whatever we do can be done more mindfully and thus is usually done better. The Buddha considered the development of mindfulness of prime importance, often more important than anything else. He described four foundations of mindfulness, four domains where mindfulness can be developed. These are mindfulness of body, feelings, mind, and mental factors.

Mindfulness of body includes being aware of position, such as when sitting or standing, and of movement, as in the walking meditation. Also included is mindfulness of breathing, both during meditation and at other times. Is the breathing long or short, fast or slow, obstructed or smooth? Women might cultivate being more mindful of their menstrual cycle, including experiences of ovulation and the effects of different aspects of the cycle, such as changes of energy level, mood, and whether one is inner or outer directed.

Mindfulness of feelings involves developing greater awareness of stresses, pains, and degree of relaxation. It involves noticing that we tend to classify all feelings immediately as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. It involves noticing later effects of the feeling, such as movement toward or away, and tendencies toward specific emotions, such as anger or sexual arousal.

Mindfulness of mind includes noticing how concentrated and mindful the mind is. It involves becoming aware of how affected the mind is by passion, hatred, confusion, and distraction.

Mindfulness of mental factors involves developing awareness of those aspects of the mind that aid or impair spiritual awakening, such as many of the processes discussed in this book. The Buddha included many things in this foundation of mindfulness. One example is mindfulness of the five hindrances—sense desire (lust), hatred or anger, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt.

Most meditation traditions emphasize concentration/absorption over mindfulness. Buddhism’s great contribution is the emphasis given to mindfulness, particularly as practiced in the Theravadin (Hinayana) branch of Buddhism. Within the Theravadin tradition are the highly developed vipassana (insight) meditations. Vipassana practices include a carefully detailed sequence of mindfulness meditations that leads to ever subtler aspects of consciousness. This reveals insights into the fundamental nature of one’s self and existence in general (e.g., impermanence, suffering, and egolessness). Beyond this, the practices lead to the ultimate spiritual awakening, including various levels of enlightenment.

Opening the heart is based on opening oneself to people and experiences and accepting reality as it is. It involves gradually transcending the limitations, attachments, and biases of the normally restricted ego-based perspective. Opening the heart involves the cultivation of unconditional acceptance of reality, as opposed to the usual judging, rejecting, and fighting with reality. Unconditional acceptance does not mean becoming passive and not trying to change anything (the world, other people, yourself). Your analytic mind will still evaluate reality and plan courses of action. But your heart will gradually accept everything at each step along the way. In fact, your mind will make more effective decisions when it is less impaired by emotion-backed attachments, and when it is less thrown off by emotional upset caused by differences between reality and models of how reality “should” be.

Meditation is a time to practice opening the heart. You need only to be open to perceiving reality as it is in the moment-to-moment here and flow. When meditating, one wants to develop an openness to the experiences and insights of one’s own being.

Opening the heart also involves opening to experiencing and accepting the whole world and all people. It involves opening your whole being to what you perceive and how you respond to it. It is based on a relaxed receptivity to other people and situations. The heart opens with unconditional acceptance, even while you are doing things to alter reality.

Opening the heart involves letting other people into your heart and unconditionally accepting them. It often takes great courage to let others into your heart and open yourself to being touched in the heart. Thus, opening to others often involves opening and closing, expanding and contracting, as you gradually work in this area. It is important to remember that accepting or loving another person does not mean that you like that person’s behavior; you may try to change another’s behavior, or you may avoid that person. But by opening your heart, you learn to unconditionally accept a person over and beyond any of your reactions to particular behaviors. A parent may love a child very much no matter what the child does, while simultaneously disliking some of the child’s behaviors and trying to change them. It is important for children and others to know that they are continually loved, even when there are conflicts.

As a general rule, we are all doing the best we can, given our level of understanding, values, experiences, skills, and so forth. Everyone is to be accepted and valued beyond the melodrama of the game or dream. Even when a person acts cruelly or aggressively we need to realize that it is often out of fear or anxiety. So we try to have compassion for the person, not get pulled into a fight, and still do the best thing to encourage more appropriate behavior.

The early Greeks distinguished three different types of love: eros, philia, and agape. Eros is love primarily based on desire. Philia is based on friendship, brotherly love. And agape is selfless love concerned with the welfare of others. From a transpersonal point of view, eros is a perfectly natural part of being human and is thus respected. Sexual relations can also be the form for powerful tantric spiritual practices, although many people use tantra as an excuse for hedonism. But in terms of spiritual progress, we don’t want the love of opening the heart to be limited to or held back by eros. Eros is usually too tied up in the attachments of the first three centers of consciousness (chakras)—which are involved with security, sensation, and power. Eros is often caught in the “more is never enough trap,” inviting a never-ending quest for ever more sexual experiences, sensations, conquests, etc.

Opening the heart involves transcending all this and moving to the fourth center of consciousness, the heart chakra. The heart chakra is the transition between the lower levels of humanness and the upper transpersonal levels. The need for love is fundamental and is not satisfied by the stuff of attachments (sex, power, drugs, money, etc.). It is satisfied only by opening the heart.

Transpersonal practice involves assuming and acting from the position of philia, brotherly love, and moving toward agape, selfless love. Selfless love implies getting beyond the self.

Learning to love another, in the broadest sense of the word, includes developing unconditional acceptance, unconditional positive regard, patience, and forgiveness. It involves creating space and support for the other person to learn and grow. Often when with another, it involves being totally with that person in the here and now. Relationships with others should be simple and direct. Don’t cloud the relationship with unnecessary heaviness, complexities, expectations, or psychological interpretations. Relax into the relationship and enjoy it and learn from it.

Close relationships usually involve sharing of thoughts, feelings, concerns, goals, insights, touch, conscious spaces, and spiritual movement. Thomas Merton suggested that “infinite sharing is the law of God’s inner life.”

A common trap is confusing the form of a person’s behavior with the essence of how loving the person is. A person who becomes more loving does not necessarily act in any particular way. Similarly, just because a person hugs more or uses the word “love” more often does not mean the person’s heart is more open. Of course, as a person learns to love more, it will influence behavior, but not necessarily in stereotypical ways.

To open your heart maximally and learn to love others unconditionally, you must also learn to love yourself unconditionally. For many people this is much harder than loving others. Many people are kinder to their friends than they are to themselves. Most people need to make better friends with themselves and learn to accept themselves unconditionally. Loving yourself does not mean you have to like all your behaviors. There may be things you do or don’t do that you want to change. But all the while that you make such decisions and work on such changes, you should unconditionally love and accept yourself as you are. You must be patient with yourself and perhaps forgive yourself. If you argue that it is difficult or impossible to love yourself, then simply love yourself as a person who has trouble loving himself. There is no way out.

In Buddhism a popular meditation for opening the heart is the loving kindness (metta) meditation. To do this, assume your meditation form and quiet your mind. Then call up images that put you in a loving mood, and let your heart open. These might be images of a loved one, a spiritual teacher or ideal, and/or a nature scene. Keeping the mind quiet and the heart open, shift your contemplation to someone you basically like or love. Start with yourself if possible, then move to someone who has been good to you, such as a benefactor. Let your heart open to this person. You might say to yourself phrases such as “May . . . be free from danger. May . . . be free from mental suffering. May . . . be free from physical suffering. May . . . have the ease of well-being.” Then in this meditation and future meditations gradually contemplate people you like or love less and less. With patience and practice you will eventually be able during meditation to open your heart to people you previously did not like. You can learn to love them even though you don’t like many of their behaviors. Learning to love one’s enemies is a goal of true Christian practices.

By definition the transpersonal domain is entered by getting beyond (trans) the self (the personal level). One practice to facilitate this is selfless service, giving help to others merely for the sake of service. One works toward self-surrender in the here-and-now act of service. This is a critical part of karma yoga, the yoga of service. Selfless giving and serving may involve letting go of one’s ego-based attachments in favor of helping another person. In a relationship one can learn not only to give selfless love but also to receive selfless love. For love is often optimal when it is given and received selflessly. At first it may seem that love requires preferring the happiness and welfare of the loved one over one’s own. But eventually one realizes that at another level there is no difference.

In the spiritual awakening of the world, as reflected in religion, the period 550-450 B.C. was very significant. In India there were Mahavira, the reformer of the Jain religion, and Siddhartha Gautama, the father of Buddhism and reformer of yoga and Brahminism. In China were Confucius and Lao Tsu, the latter the father of Taoism. The religion of Yahweh was coming together as the world religion of Judaism. It was the beginning of the Golden Age of Greece, which would later strongly influence Western religious thought.

Then came the opening of the world’s heart, the emphasis on love in religion. The next 500 years brought the rise, spread, and culmination of the bhakti force. Arising in India, bhakti yoga developed as the spiritual path that emphasized love, devotion, and worship. Filling the needs of many people, bhakti yoga became very popular, and dramatically influenced Buddhism. Early Buddhist Practices (Theravadin/Hinayana) stressed a simple but difficult path that required much of the practitioner, such as developing concentration and mindfulness in meditation. Although this is a powerful path, it was too difficult for and/or did not suit many people. This led to the development of Mahayana Buddhism, which gives a much greater role to devotion and faith. A classic example of selfless service is the Bodhisattva vow of Mahayana Buddhism. Here the practitioner vows to postpone his own enlightenment until all others become enlightened. In some Buddhist traditions the practitioner begins with Theravadin practices and later adds Mahayana practices. Christianity arose as the bhakti force culminated. During the time of early Christianity, Eastern spiritual teachers were coming to the Mediterranean and people from the Middle East were going East. Christianity, as taught by its founder Jesus the Christ, is a religion of love and devotion. Unfortunately, Christianity got tied into Western philosophy and politics, and Western history is filled with atrocities committed in the name of Christianity (e.g., the Inquisition, witch hunts, aspects of the Crusades, religious intolerance). By contrast, no major war has ever been fought in the name of Buddhism.

Bhatki yoga, Mahayana Buddhism, and Christianity, in their purest forms, all encourage the opening of the heart through selfless service, unconditional love, and devotion. Many people have a need for some type of devotion or worship, but have trouble relating to the transpersonal. Thus, the religious aspect of these three spiritual paths provides spiritual teachers, manifestations of God, and other religious forms for people to worship and love. In some religious beliefs it is held that God manifests in human form to facilitate spiritual progress. Hindus suggest this has happened many times. Christians believe it has happened once. Opening the heart appropriately can lead to loving many others and to love that goes beyond forms. A powerful bhakti teacher is one who fully realizes in what way she or he is one with God and in what ways not.

Opening the heart is a fundamental and critical part of the universal spiritual path. It can be cultivated within a religious context, but it need not be. Opening the heart will increase happiness, improve interpersonal relations, and lead to transpersonal domains.

There is a strong tendency of the mind to grasp at and cling to certain objects of consciousness. Of the myriad of perceptions, images, and thoughts that arise in consciousness, the mind will hang on to some at the expense of others. Thus, the mind will become attached to certain sensations, rituals, expectancies, images of the self, and models of reality.

These attachments are limiting forces, biases in consciousness, and barriers to personal and transpersonal growth. When the mind clings to certain perceptions, it misses and/or distorts others. When the mind is attached to a particular image of self, it distorts information which doesn’t fit the image, it restricts changes in the self, and it impairs getting beyond the self.

An attachment often has an emotional component. Ken Keyes, a currently popular teacher, has defined an attachment (he uses the word “addiction”) as an emotion-backed demand, expectation or model that makes you upset or unhappy if it is not satisfied. If I am attached to your acting in a particular way and then you don’t act that way, I may get upset and be unhappy. Instead of unconditionally accepting you as you are and, perhaps, trying to influence your behavior, I unnecessarily get upset because reality did not match my model of how reality was supposed to be. Thus, reducing attachments is a way to gradually increase happiness and peace of mind.

In this chapter is a survey of basic knowledge about causes of attachments, some types of attachments, and ways to reduce attachments. Attachments arise throughout the day, so they provide a lot of opportunity to work on oneself. Many attachments are quite evident and relate to personal and interpersonal problems. Other attachments, to be discovered later, are very subtle and deal with one’s sense of self and how one constructs one’s “reality.”

As is made clear in all the major spiritual disciplines, for us to make optimal progress at the personal level and toward the transpersonal, we must first order our life along moral and practical guidelines. We must clean up daily living before we can optimally transcend it. Many people hope that spiritual work will somehow absolve them from the mess they have created in their personal and interpersonal lives. Although there are considerable grace and “miracles” in the game, we will continually get thrown back on unresolved issues and problems. Transpersonal practices may help us see and approach the problems better, but the problems still need to be dealt with at their level.

In terms of our “levels of being”, we need to resolve issues at the biological level before we can optimally work on the behavioral level. We need to deal with nutrition, exercise, breathing, and drugs to purify, strengthen, and come into greater harmony with the temple of the body. Similarly, we must deal with issues at the behavioral level before we can work optimally at the personal level—including psychological concerns related to thoughts, emotions, interpersonal interactions, and personal skills. We must confront practical issues, such as those related to vocation and social problems. Finally, we must deal with matters at the personal level before we can most effectively move toward the transpersonal. We must resolve problems related to self-concept, self-esteem, and fragmentation of the self.

The transpersonal is always present and available and is not “achievable” by changes at the biological, behavioral, and personal levels. However, by removing problems at these three levels, we clear the way for transpersonal realizations and transformation of being. Zen is filled with stories of “instant enlightenment.” But what is not stressed enough in the West is the many years of training the Zen practitioner went through to prepare for the sudden experience of enlightenment.

In a previous book, Skills of Living, I summarized many of the practical things we can do to get control over our lives and to clear up problems at the biological, behavioral, and personal levels, with emphasis on the behavioral. I discuss methods such as how to restructure the environment, relax body and mind, get motivated, get organized, alter habits, work with thoughts and images, choose appropriate nutrition and exercise, and deal with many common problems such as fears, weight control, and smoking. With these issues as a basis, in the last part of that book I move into those areas that overlap the domain of this book: personal freedom, happiness, love, inner peace, and mindfulness.

Over and above these specific topics, there are more general themes that run throughout Skills of Living. One is the importance of continually developing objective observation of one’s feelings, thoughts, and other behaviors. This is accomplished through record-keeping and logs, specific exercises, and mindfulness practices. A second general theme is the basic strategy of taking small steps and being committed to a plan of action that often needs to be revised. Finally, there is the importance of cultivating unconditional acceptance of oneself while simultaneously recognizing the desirability of change.

The key here for many people is developing discipline. A person often knows what needs to be done but somehow never seems to have the time or energy to get around to it. The melodrama of daily living has us too tied up. Some convince themselves that discipline is somehow counter to their personality, philosophy of living, or spiritual path. These people are usually greatly impaired in any attempt at self-improvement.

As the spiritual warrior ready to grab hold of our lives and move on, we can recognize the value of precision and discipline in everything we do. We may even do things simply for the sake of developing discipline. Thus we take the things we must do or want to do—like meditation—and simply do them, with precision and awareness and without making a big deal of it. This then gradually leads to more power, freedom, and choice.

In addition to cleaning up our lives in practical and psychological ways, we must also order them along ethical principles. In all the major spiritual disciplines there are general rules of conduct that include avoiding undesired behaviors and encouraging desired behaviors, the two limbs of yoga called yama and niyama respectively. Thus we have the Ten Commandments of Judaism and Christianity, the various precepts of Buddhism (see appendices), and many other ethical codes that discourage killing, violence, stealing, lying, and greed, and that encourage appropriate respect and devotion.

In the domain of religion, people are told to obey the ethical codes to achieve certain rewards and avoid certain punishments. This might be conceptualized in terms of heaven and hell, karma, or more immediate worldly effects. But as we progress spiritually, ethical behavior becomes more and more natural and obvious, and thus less effortful. The awakened being does not avoid stealing or lying because he is very “good” or because he fears the consequences of stealing and lying. Rather, it simply makes no sense to steal or lie. The awakened or enlightened being is motivated by compassion and a cosmic perspective, not the grasping and clinging that motivates most unethical behavior.

The various ethical codes basically describe the way a spiritually advanced person would normally act. So a good part of a spiritual practice is to adopt such an ethical code as a way to predispose your understanding and progress toward a more advanced position. And changes in overt behavior often lead to changes in thoughts, attitudes, and sense of self.

It is also worthwhile to reflect on the great depth and generality of most ethical injunctions. For example, the yama of yoga includes non-violence. Overt violence is easy to see, but what about the violence in thoughts and subtle mental Predispositions toward negative judgments. One of the Judeo-Christian commandments is against coveting, the craving for something not yours.

Dealing with coveting is very difficult and involves subtle cravings and attachments of the mind. And what about stealing? What should not be stolen? What about stealing things, ideas, people’s time? What about truthfulness? Do you always tell the truth? If not, why not? We can profit from pursuing the practical implications of the ethical principles at increasingly more general and more subtle levels, rather than just trying to follow the principles superficially and understanding them philosophically or religiously.

Finally, it is worth repeating that very many people would do better relative to transpersonal goals if they spent less time thinking and reading about spiritual topics and more time cleaning up and ordering their lives along moral and practical guidelines. This will then facilitate their spiritual progress, which will lead to spiritual insights and understanding. From this more advanced perspective, they will see that many of the philosophical issues that seemed important before are now no longer significant or meaningful.

When the Buddha was asked metaphysical questions, about such matters as previous lives or levels of heaven, he usually told the questioner it is more important to tend to more practical concerns, such as interpersonal and vocational problems.

Of course, all of this interacts with other aspects of transpersonal practice, such as opening the heart, quieting the mind, and reducing attachments. In Buddhism it is said that morality (sila), concentration (samadhi), and insight (prajna) all influence each other. An improvement in one leads to improvement in the others. For example, cleaning up ethical issues in one’s daily life makes it easier to develop concentration during meditation, for the meditation is less disrupted by ethical concerns and their consequences. And conversely, as you quiet your mind, it is easier to see and work with moral concerns.

In the domains of personal and transpersonal knowledge, we are continually bombarded by teachings and information. But most people miss most of this because they are not ready to see and hear the teachings. Their attachments limit their ability to perceive and understand those things they want and/or need to know. Often the more basic and important the teaching, the harder it is to hear.

So in personal and transpersonal growth, it is not enough just to seek out information. We also need to cultivate readiness to hear and know the lesson, the truth, the broader perspective, and the fundamental insight. The teachings are ever present. It is a matter of quieting the mind and opening the heart so we can hear and see better. It is a common spiritual maxim that the teacher will appear when the student is ready.

One block to readiness to know is intellectual closed-mindedness. We can get so caught up in a particular set of ideas or forms that we are not open to new experiences and knowledge. We are more interested in defending, justifying, and explaining our own positions. In an oft-told Zen story, a university professor goes to visit the master Nan-in to learn about Zen. While serving tea, Nan-in fills the professor’s cup and keeps on pouring though the cup is overflowing. When the professor finally points this out, Nan-in says, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Now if what we need to learn is a challenge to our images of self or world, then we often are not ready to hear. We misperceive, lie to ourselves, and have distorted memories rather than seeing and learning something that confronts our sense of self. Bob will have complex reasons for why he is not doing well at work rather than realizing it is his attitude toward his coworkers that is causing the problem. Sue is fearful of developing close relationships with men because whenever she does they end up leaving her. She is not ready to hear how she drives men away in order to maintain her belief about them. Often the problem gets worse and worse as we resist learning. Bob’s job situation and Sue’s relationships with men both deteriorate and lead to other problems.

All of us have lessons to learn about ourselves and our relationships with others and the world. When we learn the lessons our lives will be easier and happier. But our attachments blind us so that we resist learning. It is as if we get a little bump to point out the lesson, but we don’t hear. So we are hit a little harder to point out the lesson again. Still we don’t hear. Each time we get hit harder and harder until we finally pay attention and are motivated to hear. It is amazing how hard people can get hit and still not listen.

One can reduce some of the blocks by a change in attitude about self-discovery. Rather than feeling anxious or threatened by what you may learn about yourself, cultivate a positive attitude toward whatever you discover, for the discovery will help you move on. Take delight in discovering attachments, barriers, and assumptions that are limiting your personal and transpersonal growth. Have a good time on the journey.

A problem in hearing spiritual truths is that many of them are so simple and basic that they usually are understood superficially. It is in generality, depth, and subtlety that the power of spiritual truth lies, not in philosophical and conceptual understanding. Intellectual understanding of the Buddha’s idea of impermanence is quite different from a direct experience of the impermanence of everything.

Moving toward the spiritual and transpersonal realms is moving in a direction that gets simpler, not more complex. Life gets lighter, not heavier. Spiritual teachings, like ethical principles, are known in many ways other than conceptual knowledge alone. They are best known through direct experience resulting from a continually evolving journey into the nature of one’s being and beyond.

As an exercise, consider the next paragraph carefully. It is a commonly held postulate from the Perennial Philosophy, an enduring and fairly universal spiritual perspective. It doesn’t matter for the exercise whether the statement is true or false. Simply read and consider it carefully. Note your thoughts and reactions and how they relate to readiness to hear.

The highest spiritual levels cannot be obtained. For if they could, they would be limited in time, Occurring after some time, and separable from you, since it is something you obtain. Rather, these higher levels are one without a second, unlimited, and outside of time and space. Therefore, they are always already here. You are already enlightened, even if “you” don’t “realize” it.

Now even if this is true, just reading it will not make it self-evident to most people. They are not able to hear it in a way that transforms them. The practices surveyed in this book help cultivate the readiness to hear and know, even though there is nothing you have to do.

So how can you tell when you are understanding clearly as opposed to being caught in one of your attachments? How can you tell true spiritual insight from tricks of the mind? There are no simple answers to such questions. We must learn for ourselves, making mistakes along the way. As we learn to quiet our minds and open our hearts, we find a fundamental level of sanity prior to all the melodrama. We learn to tune in to the still small voice within. We learn to identify a sense of clarity and obviousness that is part of basic insights. We come to see how such insights alter our perceptions, values, and behaviors.

After the last supper when Jesus was leaving his disciples, they were concerned about what they would do when their teacher was gone. Jesus told them not to worry for he would send the Holy Spirit to be their inner guide.

When a person decides to pursue a spiritual path, the question is often which path to follow. Sometimes circumstances dictate a particular path. But often one is confronted by a variety of paths with associated stories and promises. Which path to take? What are some general guidelines for making such decisions?

First, it must be realized that finding your way is part of the path itself. Learning how and why you choose different paths is an important part of the overall process. What attachments are involved? What entices you in the spiritual supermarket? Cultivating a readiness to hear and know is important here.

Along the way, you may make many mistakes; this is the norm. But don’t be anxious about this or be obsessed with not making mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and they are wonderful opportunities to learn.

Different paths are right for different people at different times. One’s personality, attachments, psychological needs, and readiness to know may lead to a particular path. Of the major world systems, yoga more than any other recognizes the need for different paths (yogas) for people with different needs. For example, there is hatha yoga, the yoga best known in the West, which emphasizes working with the body, including postures, breathing, nutrition, and cleansing. There is karma yoga, which stresses selfless service, action without attachment, and spiritualizing work in daily life. Bhakti yoga is the yoga of love, devotion, and ritual worship. Jnana yoga is built on self-analysis, awareness, and discrimination, while raja yoga, as codified by Patanjali, includes all of these yogas.

Along with finding your way is the recognition that the path which is right for you is not necessarily right for someone else. Thus, an important part of spiritual practice is developing unconditional respect for the paths of others and the realization that there is much to be learned from people on other paths and with other perspectives. The American Indians’ use of the medicine wheel often incorporated this understanding. People with different perspectives and understandings would sit together at the wheel to share their different views. It was understood that the Great Way encompasses all the points of the wheel.

It is often the case that the strength of a particular path is also the cause of many of its problems. For example, one person’s path may be largely intellectual, with a lot of reading, thinking, and philosophizing. This can be good to a point, but it can also result in the person being lost in his own conceptual knowledge and not moving into other types of knowing. Or one may be on a devotional path. A common trap here is distorting reality so it takes a form that is easier to love. More important is learning to perceive and love reality as it is.

Another common trap is the difficulty in letting go of a particular method, group, teacher, or path after its usefulness is past. You may still respect, honor, and value it; but you need to be able to let it go. Say you come to a difficult river that you wish to cross and eventually find a boat that gets you to the other side. You may appreciate the boat, but you need to leave it at the shore and travel on. It would be a mistake to carry the boat on your back because it had helped you. It would also be a mistake to argue that everyone should have a boat like yours, and the only way across the river is the way you came.

Related to this is the more-is-never-enough trap. Because a particular method or teacher has been helpful to you does not mean that more of the same will be more helpful. Realize when you have had enough and move on. Don’t be attached to just more of the same.

It is important to follow your path with great precision, willfulness, and skill. You need to give your path the importance it deserves without getting lost in its forms. You need to stay with your path through all its obstacles and not jump from path to path. Yet you need to be able to take a new path when the time has come.

There is an important paradox in the analogy of following a path. That is, the essence of the ultimate spiritual path is not to get you somewhere else at some other time. Rather, it is a matter of being more fully in the here and now. All the practices described in this book are intended to bring you into a more direct experience of reality here and now. It is not an issue of getting “there”; it is an issue of being “here.“ It is not “then,” but “now.”

As in dancing, it is not so much where meditation takes you that is important. Rather, it is how you do the activity itself. Where a spiritual path may lead is of secondary importance to the here and now of how you are traveling the path. You need to let go of the past and take responsibility for your current psychological and spiritual state. You need to let go of anticipations of the future and confront the present. Pets can be good teachers in this area, for animals appear to live much more in the here and now than humans.

In fact, you are always only in the here and now. No matter where you go, if you ask where you are, the answer is “here.” And no matter when you ask yourself what time it is, the answer is “now.” But most people’s minds are dominated by memories of the past and plans and fantasies of the future. So they get lost in this imaginary mind stuff and don’t recognize the reality of the here and now. However, if one looks closely, it is clear that there is no past, only memories now, and no future, only plans and fantasies now. Spiritual practices bring one more into the here and now. Enlightened persons do not disappear into some cosmic cloud. Instead, they are more fully in the here and now. This does not mean they become irresponsible or no longer plan for the future. They still think and plan appropriately, but do not get lost in the contents of the thoughts and plans.

Finally, the hardest and most subtle teaching in finding our way is the basic fallacy of “seeking” itself. If the highest spiritual levels cannot be obtained and are already always there, then anything which suggests the idea of seeking or obtaining them perpetuates a myth and a dilemma which is a fundamental obstacle. Zen is based on the premise that a person is already free, that the chains are an illusion. We are free as soon as we cease to believe we need to free ourselves. Thus, many contemporary teachers, such as Krishnamurti and Da Free John, have continued to attack the search itself.

But this teaching is very difficult to hear and has not been particularly useful or practical. How do you stop seeking? How do you realize the chains are illusions? So one follows a path until one is ready to really hear, in a way that transforms one’s being, that the path was both unnecessary and necessary. Meditation is a good place for many people first to come to grips with being involved in a spiritual practice without trying to obtain anything.

It is important to be able to relax into a spiritual path and not make it unnecessarily unpleasant or heavy. So, follow the path with precision, compassion, and clarity. But relax and enjoy it.

Most people on a spiritual path can profit from the input of spiritual teachers (gurus), and many spiritual traditions consider this necessary, although many people have done well without one.

There are many ways a teacher can help. In some cases, it is useful to get practical advice from someone who is further along the path. Some teachers act as mirrors and help us see ourselves more accurately and expose our “games.” Often we don’t like the reflection in the mirror and we blame the mirror. Some teachers can pull the student more into the here and now or into particular conscious spaces. Some teachers can fill one with love or spiritual energy (e.g., shaktipat). Some offer themselves as the personification of what they teach, while others are only passing on spiritual information.

Unfortunately, many people who publicly function as spiritual teachers are not very spiritually advanced or are outright frauds, whether they know it or not. There are a lot of power traps in being a public guru, and a teacher who gets caught in such attachments may do more enslaving than freeing of the student. The amount of jealousy, competition, empire-building, and sexual misconduct among major contemporary spiritual teachers is amazing. Few teachers who rise to a position of great power, respect, and adoration seem able to handle it. Thus the most popular teachers are not necessarily the best teachers. On the other hand, among the better known teachers are many legitimate, sincere, powerful, advanced gurus.

As a general rule, a spiritual teacher should be trying to incorporate spiritual ideals and practices into his or her own life. Thus, there should be evidence of such things as a quieting mind, opening heart, and getting free from attachments. One should be suspect of a guru whose personal life and relationships are out of order and causing suffering. Since spiritual progress usually leads to a freer and lighter position, an advanced guru will seldom impose unnecessary heaviness and will often have a sense of humor about the game of life. On the other hand, many spiritual teachers choose to act in outrageous ways to challenge the students’ preconceptions about the form spirituality must take.

An enlightened being does not necessarily choose to be a visible public guru or to assume the form that one might expect. Thus, it could be that the bus driver or Aunt Sally might be an awakened being, but most people do not realize them as such because they are not ready to know. Historically, there have been many great gurus that people thought were fools.

In fact, everyone is your guru in that you can learn from everyone. Adopting this perspective toward others can help open the heart. For various reasons, you have more intense relationships with some of these gurus, such as your family and friends. With these people it is important always to recognize the spiritual component. Thus, in addition to all the other things a marriage relationship is, it also is a tremendous opportunity for two people to help each other and learn from each other on the spiritual path. Your spouse can be your best guru since he or she knows you so well, and since ideally you are merging in being, although not necessarily in personality.

Children are often incredible teachers. A parent can learn much from the clarity and innocence of the child. And the parent has the opportunity to help the child learn and develop in a way that will facilitate later spiritual work. In addition, the drama of the family is an excellent arena for personal and transpersonal learning, from basic behavioral and personal issues to more general concerns such as loyalty and protection.

Many people involved in spiritual work seek and value associating with others with similar interests, perhaps through a church, discussion group, or community. Through such organized meetings people share ideas and discoveries, raise questions, provide support and encouragement to each other, bring in teachers, and initiate various activities. Several of the great spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism, emphasize the value of such a community of spiritually-minded people.

Finally, teachers can occur in many forms including animals, phenomena in nature, guides within consciousness, books, and everything else. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. The form of the teacher is not as important as the essence of the teaching.

At first, spiritual practice is something one does every now and then, such as going to church once a week, meditating periodically, or working for a charity on some afternoons. There is a sense that there is a real difference between the sacred and the profane.

But as our spiritual practice becomes more sophisticated, these distinctions break down. Everything that we do can be approached spiritually. Taking out the garbage can be as spiritual as doing religious chants in a temple. Washing dishes can be as good an opportunity for spiritual awakening as meditating in the Himalayas. The form of what one does should not be confused with the essence of spirituality.

Associated with this is the practical realization that every instant of one’s life is an opportunity to do spiritual work. Every moment is an opportunity for one to do things such as quiet the mind, increase mindfulness, open the heart, or reduce attachments. Every situation is an opportunity to choose to wake up or to stay lost in the dream. At any time and place you can catch yourself, relax, pull into the here and now, and apply one or more of your spiritual practices.

Although disciplined times of formal sitting meditation are important, each day is filled with many opportunities for mini-meditations. A good time for a mini-meditation might be just before others wake up, during a break in work, while sitting in a waiting room, or while waiting for a bus. You don’t need to assume a particular form or make a big deal of it. Just close your eyes, put your attention on your breathing, quiet your mind, and increase your awareness. It can be for just a couple of minutes. Even one minute is helpful. Mini-meditations allow you to take time out from the game and recenter yourself. By having a number of mini-meditations throughout the day, you increase your meditation skills and facilitate the development of a meditative stance in daily living. And you loosen your attachments for the moment.

At first, concentration is usually best developed during formal meditation. But with practice we gradually become more and more aware of how focused or one-pointed our minds are in all situations. When listening to a friend or listening to music, we can be aware of how much the mind stays on what we want to hear and how much it runs off to other things, such as sensations, thoughts, and fantasies. We can then apply and develop concentration skills by gently and firmly bringing the mind back to what is to be heard. Thus most of the time you have an opportunity to be aware of how one-pointed your mind is, and to practice developing concentration on whatever you are seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, smelling, or tasting. When you are eating, how much are you attending to the sensations of eating? When you are reading, how often do you find that you have “completed” a paragraph or page and don’t know what you read?

The same applies to mindfulness. At almost any instant you can practice being aware of body sensations, breathing, feelings, one-pointedness of mind, specific thoughts and images, intentions, and/or processes of the mind. You can be aware of the functioning and effects of the attachments. You can notice the opening and closing of your heart or mind. Thus situations like brushing your teeth, washing dishes, or driving a car are wonderful opportunities to develop mindfulness. Often people treat such routines as boring and distract themselves by day-dreaming, planning, listening to music, and other diversions. But these moments are rich with sensations to be mindful of. In addition, one can be mindful of the reactions to the sensations and the situation in general.

Thus throughout the day one can develop concentration and mindfulness. But you need to gradually build it up, doing it more and more, so you don’t overwhelm yourself or make it an unpleasant task. Relax and have a good time. Some days you might wear a “reminder” such as a particular necklace or ring which reminds you to be more mindful whenever you notice it. As concentration and mindfulness are gradually cultivated throughout the day, and as mini-meditations are incorporated, the distinctions between when one is meditating and when one is not start to dissolve. What you do when meditating involves a widening range of situations and forms. Sometimes you are sitting on a cushion watching your breath. Sometimes you are raking leaves.

Throughout the day you can be aware of and cultivate opening the heart. For example, notice bow open you are to experiencing reality as it is. How much do you distort reality to fit some model in your mind? How much do your judgments and attachments keep you from unconditionally accepting yourself or someone else? How can you better make friends with yourself? To what extent can you see the spiritual aspect of another person beyond his or her personality and behavior? “Namaste” is a common Hindu greeting in Nepal and India. It means, “I greet the spiritual within you.”

In the Christian monastic tradition is the prayer of the heart or “Jesus prayer.” This involves keeping Jesus ever present in the ground of one’s being. This intense practice often involves invocations such as “Jesus” or “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” By keeping Jesus ever in one’s awareness, by always praying at one level of consciousness, one can control thoughts and temptations, guard and purify the mind, lose pre-occupations with the limited self, bring the holy spirit into the heart, and become one in spirit with Christ. Similar practices are the “practice of the presence of God” and the “remembrance of the name,” both of which involve continual remembrance of God. Mahatma Gandhi practiced keeping the name “Ram” always on his mind. Ram is one of the Hindu manifestations of God.

Retrospection is a useful practice to help cultivate a more continual spiritual perspective. Retrospection is done near the end of each day. You quiet your mind and then try to maintain a meditative stance as you let the events of the day freely pass through your consciousness. This need only take about ten minutes; but it will vary from day to day and person to person. The purpose is to let issues resolve themselves, to see things more clearly when you are less pulled into them, and to notice the subtle attachments you overlooked earlier.

Finally, many people find that keeping a journal is a valuable aid in personal and transpersonal growth. The journal of writings and drawings can include many things, such as one or more of the following: a meditation log reporting daily perceptions, experiences, and thoughts about your meditation practice; an attachment log each day noting attachments of particular interest and significance and what you are learning about dealing with them; a dream diary kept by your bedside for recording dreams as soon as possible after they occur; and a daily or weekly spiritual journal in which you note ideas, lessons, quotes, reminders, etc. about your spiritual practice. Keeping a journal can help you think more clearly about your practices and notice patterns and interrelationships you might otherwise overlook. It can also help you see progress where you think there is none. Reading over a journal you have kept for a while gives you a good perspective of yourself.

The act of writing down things relating to problems may help you better define the issue, see resolutions, or come up with new ideas and perceptions about the problem. Sometimes the act of writing gives you a chance to release emotions. It can also be a way to put down and throw away some attachments, finished business, and old ideas.

So the serious practitioner of a spiritual/transpersonal path recognizes that the overall practice is applicable all the time. This is not instead of whatever else one does, but in addition to it and inclusive of it. Formal sitting meditation, mini- meditations, retrospection, and journal-keeping are some of the ways gradually to cultivate a more general and more continual spiritual perspective.

It is very helpful for most people periodically to step out of their lives, to take a time-out from the game. This helps us get a better perspective on our life, to see and think more clearly about what we are doing. Meditation is a good and easy way to do this, but we occasionally need a bigger change of scene. We need periodically to get out of town, or some equivalent.

Vacations are a common way to do this and can be fun, interesting, stimulating, and a distraction from many of our usual concerns. When geographically far away, we can look back on our life differently and perhaps see things in a better perspective. But vacations often are so filled with activities that we do not have the opportunity really to step out of our life; rather, we just change the events in our life. People often return from vacations tired and stressed. Thus, although vacations can be therapeutic in many ways, they are seldom the optimal way to develop transpersonal perspective. Usually we are so caught up in the events of a vacation we have little time for spiritual practice.

So in terms of personal and transpersonal growth, it is helpful to take periodic retreats in which we step out of our routines and do not fill the time with events. Parents need time away from the children, time they can devote to themselves and/or their spouses. And individuals need time alone, time to regroup, recenter, and intensify spiritual practices.

The retreat might be an afternoon each week in which we leave the daily routine and go for quiet drives and walks alone. The retreat might be a day each week in which we rest from the usual activities and cultivate the spiritual. This is one of the Judeo-Christian commandments.

Every now and then a retreat of a few days or more can be useful. This might involve staying in a motel in a nearby town, staying in the house of friends while they are away, camping out, or going to a lodge in a state park or church camp.

Retreat time is a time to be quiet and introspective, a time to get out of the melodrama of daily living and reflect on it. It is a time to quiet the mind and pull into the here and now. It is a time to let go of some past attachments and resolve to begin anew. Some of the time might be devoted to reading spiritual and/or inspirational materials, but the retreat should not be filled with reading. The retreat is an opportunity for intensive meditation practice.

Although much can be accomplished in daily meditation, even more can be accomplished by the addition of retreats in which one meditates for many hours a day for a number of days. In such intensive meditation one can reach depths that are hard to reach in shorter sessions. This will also facilitate daily practice, making it easier to achieve these levels again. In addition, powerful insights may arise during intense practice.

Of course, one has to build up to such intense practice. A beginner would probably have more negative than positive results from five days of intensive meditation. After you have been meditating regularly for a while, set aside a day in which you meditate for several hours. Alternate sitting and walking meditations in a pattern that works well for you. One pattern might be forty-five-minute sitting periods alternated with thirty-minute walking periods. Longer sitting periods can be good. Walking meditations can help overcome drowsiness that comes with sitting. Finding your own rhythm is important.

You can also set up your own intensive meditation retreat. Find a place such as those mentioned above, where you can be alone and undisturbed. Make living there as simple as possible. Eat the minimum amount necessary and stick to simple, basic foods. Avoid television, music, day-dreaming, and excessive or non-spiritual reading. Establish a simple routine of sleeping, eating, cleaning, and exercise. Perhaps you can provide a little spiritual input from books or tapes, but meditate as much as possible, alternating sitting and walking meditations.

Throughout the United States and the world there are many meditation retreat centers. Many are inexpensive and open to the public. Some are church sponsored; some are not. Some provide instruction in meditation; some just provide a place for you to meditate. If you are serious about meditation and wish to pursue the practice beyond the basics outlined in this book, it would be advantageous for you to seek personal instruction, such as is found at many meditation retreats.

When one has been out of the routine of life for a while, as when on vacation or retreat, one needs to attend carefully to re-entry. You don’t want to jump back into your ordinary life as it was with the same old thoughts and feelings. Rather, you want to re-enter more gradually, being mindful of your old thoughts, reactions, habits, and attachments. Schedule your time so you can do this slowly. Don’t arrive home late on Sunday and then start work early Monday. Try to keep your mind as quiet and aware for as long as possible. Avoid old attachments. Intentionally break undesired habits. Be a warrior. Approach the game of life with new clarity, compassion, and precision. Avoid getting pulled into the melodrama.

Slowly you will get pulled more and more into the dream of your daily life until eventually you will be asleep again. But the longer you stay awake during re-entry, the easier it will to be wake up again.

This book summarizes the practices for gradual awakening. These practices can improve daily living as well as leading to that which is beyond. There is little more you need to know. But you need to incorporate these practices, in whatever form is appropriate, into your daily living. You need to do the practices, not just think about them.

Of course, there is much more that could be said on any of the topics covered here and many more practices that could be useful to you. You should seek out those that you need and utilize those that your particular path leads you to. But the basics, as outlined in this book, are fairly universal; you will keep coming back to the basics. It is all very simple.

I wish you well on the journey and offer this book to help you along the way.

Many of the books in this list go in and out of print with various publishers. There are also many different translations of some of the non-English books, particularly classic spiritual texts. I cannot say which translation is the most “accurate” or “appropriate” for any particular reader.

The books are grouped by the following overlapping categories:

American Indians
Attachments/Addictions
Autobiographies
Buddhism and the Buddha
Buddhism: Tantric/Tibetan
Buddhism: Zen
Chakras and Kundalini
Christian Practice
Christian Theory
Consciousness
Death
Dreams
Happiness
Journals/Diaries
Judaism
Love
Meditation: Practice
Meditation: Theory and Research
Mindfulness/Vipassana
Mysticism/Enlightenment
References
Religion
Religious Classics
Self-improvement
Stories
Sufism
Taoism
Teachers: Contemporary
Transpersonal Psychology: General
Transpersonal Psychology: East and West
Yoga: General
Yoga: Hatha